Ed Hawkins: Bashes not Ashes thrashes, thanks

Ed Hawkins
19 December 2017

Anderson's time is nearly up

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Ed Hawkins yearns for a rare competitive series in a sporting contest which never lives up to the hype - could be different in two years, though...

"Next time in Blighty the cycle could be broken. Australia will go off odds-against and offer punters some rarely-spotted value"

The Australian cricketing public have been waiting all their summer for some competitive cricket. So they must be grateful for the Big Bash League, which started just as soon as the Ashes was revealed as the hopeless anti-climax that it almost always is.

Put aside your tribal affections for one minute and ask yourself when was the last time these two produced a series which could be genuinely filed under 'sporting contest'. For sure 2005. Maybe 2010-11 when it Andrew Strauss' team won in the fifth and final Test at Sydney.

That England success is the only time in the last nine that the series has not been won by the host country. It is the 10th time a team has retained/regained by the end of the third Test. It makes you wonder why such a fuss is made about this event.

Does it matter? Well, yes. Ashes clashes, rightly or wrongly, are billed as Test cricket's finest. On Such a pedestal are they that when the jabbering begins about fixtures for the World Test Championships England-Australia contests are treated like royalty.

But if you wanted a proper toe-to-toe, slug-it-out, blood, sweat and tears humdinger you wouldn't cross the road for these two facing off. One throwing all the shots and landing them with blood-splattered regularity. The other whimpering pathetically about injuries, the wickets, being called names and hangovers.

There should be something uncomfortably ironic for anybody who cares about the future of the Test game that the Big Bash league is something of a saviour this summer. It comes to something when Hobart Hurricanes versus the Melbourne Renegades whets the appetite more than another two terribly one-sided affair in the offing.

As punters we just want to see something that resembles a fair fight. Betting on 1.42/5 chances over the course of a potential 25 days of action is not going to wash these days of thrash and bash and three-and-a-half hour gratification thanks to some falutin' franchise tournament.

Blown away

So no, Joe Root you did get blown away. Defeats by 10 wickets, 120 runs and an innings and 41 runs are about as heavy as it gets - and the margins are getting bigger. We make it only two days that England have managed to win all series.

As a result Australia are 2.3411/8 to win 5-0 and they are not better than 1.584/7 for the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne. England are 5.85/1. That affords them more respect than they deserve.

This is the problem with the Ashes. They are no fun to bet on. For the 'G most punters will now be scrabbling around top-bat bets and side markets for a bit of an interest, rather than some juicy value wager or trade as the two titans go at it with the game ebbing and flowing. Not a hope.

Australia, by the way, should not be deemed above criticism. When they turn up in England and the ball moves a centimetre off the seam for the first time they implode like an Englishman when the natives Down Under shout 'boo!' The fact Peter Handscomb, who Kevin Pietersen brilliantly described as playing French cricket, is near the national team suggests they still have a lot to learn about batting technique.

Perversely, it is England who could offer some respite from such processions. Next time in Blighty the cycle could be broken. Australia will go off odds-against and offer punters some rarely-spotted value.

If - and it's a big if - Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins are fit then they will cause major problems themselves with a moving ball, perhaps making the gap between the two in such conditions non-existent.

There is also the not-so-small matter of England in a rebuilding phase. Much like Australia were when Strauss and Co won in Australia. Alastair Cook should announce his retirement at the end of the series following a year which has exposed his lack of hunger for runs. The double against the Windies forgotten, he has had a horrible time.

In two years James Anderson and Stuart Broad may have also hung up their bowling boots. The replacement for the former will take many years because that's how long it takes to move the ball both ways like Anderson. There is no ready-made replacement just waiting for game time to hone those skills.

Broad's spot could, eventually, go to someone like Tom Curran. He's got the blond hair, the famous cricketer dad who did not suffer fools and the same confidence in his ability. But otherwise the bowling stocks of England are pretty bare either with seamer and swingers to win it at home or the outright pace needed to win it away.

Pressure off

So Melbourne and Sydney will be about trying to find some positives. Jamie Overton and Dawid Malan are the only two. Maybe Mason Crane, the leggie, might be given a go and Mark Wood, the one genuine quick, another shot at trying to prove his body can take it.

But you don't fancy their chances of replacing Cook anytime soon. They have, probably, only just found a replacement for Andrew Strauss and even then Mark Stoneman does have something of the bargain basement about him. He's got oodles of guts but not a lot of class.

Perhaps that's unfair. He's one of the few Englishman to have enjoyed the pressure. With the series now gone and a hell of a lot of it released, it will be interesting to see whether England, finally, relax and just play.

There was a hint in Adelaide that they had been consumed by the enormity of it all. With the game gone they suddenly hit their line and length in Australia's second-innings. So good were they that they got back into the game. They promptly crumbled when given time to ponder this.

Any sports psychologist on seeing that would have reckoned that England were mentally shot. In Melbourne, then, they should be able to breathe more easily and just play. They may even enjoy themselves. And if they do perk up, it might push out that Aussie price in two years just a tad.

Ed Hawkins P-L

2017: +22pts
2016: +18.1pts
2015: +38pts
2014: +31.5pts
2013: +25pts
Based only on available prices. Does not include back-to-lay in-running match advice or commission rate. Figures 2013-2016 on 1pt level stakes. New points system (0.5pt-5) introduced for 2017. Includes Hawk-Eye stats column p-l